Generally, a hydrogen pipeline system provides a continuous pipe conduit, complete with equipment such as valves, compressor stations, communications systems, and meters, for transporting hydrogen from one point to another, usually from one point (or points) of production or processing to another, or to points of use.
Optimizing the operations of a hydrogen pipeline system is a complex task. In particular, optimizing a pipeline system to account for power costs of various nodes, for reconfigurable elements (e.g., a pipeline element that can act to increase pressure or flow, or decrease pressures or flows at a particular node of the pipeline), and for contractually obligated output and pressure requirements and at various nodes, has proven to be a difficult task. Further, a variety of different sources may introduce hydrogen into the pipeline at different purity levels; this difference in purity for input feeds (as well as output feeds) complicates the optimization process. Commercially-available pipeline optimization systems have been generally unable to provide satisfactory solutions for configuring complex pipeline systems. In particular, commercially-available pipeline optimization systems have been unable to account for the variety of factors that may impact on the operational cost of operating the pipeline. Instead, such systems often constrain a variety of these variables and seek to optimize an isolated aspect of pipeline operation, assuming that the others may be optimized independently. Often, this has lead to sub-optimal solutions. Moreover, even when current systems have proven capable of identifying a highly-quality solution, they often fail to do so in a reasonable amount of time.